{"id":14586,"date":"2011-04-02T02:58:28","date_gmt":"2011-04-02T07:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14586"},"modified":"2011-04-03T23:10:55","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T04:10:55","slug":"2011-final-four-betting-vcu-rams-vs-butler-bulldogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/2011-final-four-betting-vcu-rams-vs-butler-bulldogs-14586\/","title":{"rendered":"2011 Final Four Betting: VCU Rams vs. Butler Bulldogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

2011 NCAA Tournament Final Four<\/strong>
\n#8 Butler Bulldogs vs. #11 VCU Rams, Reliant Stadium, Houston, TX<\/strong>
\nSaturday, April 2, 2011, 6:09 pm Eastern, TV: CBS<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Butler -2.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Butler -2.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 131<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 134<\/strong>
\nMoney Line: Butler -145 \/ VCU +125<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Butler
Shelvin Mack and Butler are trying to make it to the NCAA title game for the second year in a row.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Southwest Region champion VCU Rams (28-11) and Southeast Region champion Butler Bulldogs (27-9) have taken much different roads to their Final Four matchup on Saturday at Houston\u2019s Reliant Stadium, but both teams have certainly earned the right to play for a shot at the national championship on Monday night.\u00a0 The eighth-seeded Bulldogs (-2.5) are back in the national semifinals for the second straight year while the 11th-seeded Rams became the first team ever to win five consecutive games in the NCAA tournament on their way to the Final Four.<\/p>\n

Virginia Commonwealth benefited greatly from the addition of the inaugural First Four in Dayton this year and would have been sitting home had the tournament field not been expanded to 68 teams.\u00a0 Yet the Rams have been the second-most dominant of the four teams left standing, beating their opponents by an average margin of 12 points per game.\u00a0 Only one of VCU\u2019s four games was decided by less than 10 points, a 72-71 overtime victory against #10 Florida State.<\/p>\n

Like the Rams, Butler has been an underdog in every NCAA tournament game this year, which is not that much different from last year\u2019s run to the national title game.\u00a0 The Bulldogs lost the championship to Duke 61-59 after upsetting Syracuse and Kansas State as underdogs, and they are a remarkable 9-1 straight-up and against the spread in the Big Dance the past two years.<\/p>\n

After falling to the Blue Devils, the team also lost star Gordon Hayward to the NBA following his sophomore year and has relied on senior Matt Howard to be the hero this time around.\u00a0 Howard hit the game-winning shot in a 60-58 win over #8 Old Dominion in the second round and then made the game-winning free throws in a 71-70 upset of #1 Pittsburgh two days later.<\/p>\n

While VCU and Butler have both thrived as dogs throughout the NCAA tournament, the major difference between them so far has been how each team has won games.\u00a0 The Bulldogs have seen three of their four games decided by three points or less, and seven of their past nine tourney games dating back to last year have been decided by four or less.\u00a0 The UNDER is 7-2 in those games and 7-3 in their past 10 overall.<\/p>\n

The Rams turned in the biggest upset of the Big Dance last Sunday when they shocked #1 Kansas 71-61 as 11-point underdogs.\u00a0 That continued domination of opponents has made VCU head coach Shaka Smart one of the most sought-after young minds in college basketball.\u00a0 The 33-year-old Smart is six months younger than Butler\u2019s Brad Stevens, who last year became the second-youngest coach ever to make it to the NCAA championship game.<\/p>\n

Now that you have read this Final Four college basketball betting preview featuring Butler & VCU, check out the NCAA basketball odds on this and all the games to compare the best lines at multiple sportsbooks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2011 NCAA Tournament Final Four #8 Butler Bulldogs vs. #11 VCU Rams, Reliant Stadium, Houston, TX Saturday, April 2, 2011, 6:09 pm Eastern, TV: CBS Opening Line: Butler -2.5 Current Line: Butler -2.5 Opening Total: 131 Current Total: 134 Money Line: Butler -145 \/ VCU +125 The Southwest Region champion VCU Rams (28-11) and Southeast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":9796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4657,695,4790,3887,10,4791,4792,4316,4661,4660,4317,4318,3,4662,4659,4503,4670],"class_list":["post-14586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-2011-ncaa-tournament","tag-butler-bulldogs","tag-butler-vcu-preview","tag-college-basketball-betting","tag-final-four","tag-final-four-betting","tag-final-four-picks","tag-free-college-basketball-pick","tag-march-madness-betting","tag-march-madness-picks","tag-ncaa-basketball-odds","tag-ncaa-hoops-picks","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-ncaa-tournament-betting","tag-ncaa-tournament-picks","tag-vcu-rams","tag-virginia-commonwealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14586"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14656,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14586\/revisions\/14656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}